Computer compatibility questions

[Indio21]

Skinjack, now this is funny........Blame it on the modders. :smile: They won't stop making stuff. I probably need to cut back. Its become a bad habit. I am making note of it for when my next build comes around!!

 

And this is hilarious......After 32 years with my wife, you want me to start spoiling her now? I finally got her trained the way I wanted her. You know. Doesn't want anything outlandish. Hands over the check when she gets paid. Cooks. Cleans. Does the laundry. Pliable. :smile: Got any tips for me as I couldn't get her cheap old man to pay for the "wife obedience school". He just swore it was a waste of $$$ :(

 

Out of curiosity, do you have the NVMe drive internally or do you have it hooked up through a USB housing.....If memory serves me right the M.2 is only available directly on the MB. I took two years of Electronics in HS back when they actually troubleshot down to the individual component and not just replaced the whole board. Coming from that background everything ajenthedog said on connections is true. Even voltage drops the greater distance it has to travel. By plugging one directly into MB you have removed all those variables for speed, lag, drops, whatever as any more of a direct connection one would have to solder it in.

 

I have all my mods and game and STEAM and everything else on the same drive, just not Vortex because it defaulted to the c:......Might find some answers in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsIEftpc1Ac. Yggdrasil likes to cover three MMs in his videos. Otherwise I would look up GamerPoets' channel on Utube.

 

And I can definitely relate to this one......I get a new computer few and far in-between. Sucks being an adult.

 

Also most definitely go with a tower. I don't think anyone playing the RPGs can just play for an hour and be done. Probably more like 3 to 4 hours for my shortest play time in SSE. Putting power to a high end pc does enough damage with heat alone that ventilation is a big factor to component longevity. IDK about you but as an adult I have learned to make sure I get the most bang for my buck! A well designed tower for such a system will go a long way into protecting said investment. When I did this last build I reused my old XBlade tower. It is known for flaws with ventilation but I think it just looks bad azz so I been keeping it, lol. Of course I redid all the fans and such and as you probably guess not much I cannot do with metal so not to great a factor for this build.

 

Yes, I have and use them all to the limitations I have. Solidworks, AutoCAD, Inventor, Mastercam, Revit, etc and yes I can do 3d rendering/backplotting with both SW and MC running at the same time with whatever other tools for code with out a single glitch. I am really obsessive about keeping up on the pm work to my machines so this one still loads to a working desktop in like less than 20 seconds. Why I am tolerating the vram hang up. Don't want to upgrade the V card for the next ES game to come out and now whatever besides the vcard needs updating. Do the wait and do it all up again.

 

Thanks for laughs!!!

[Indio21]

system bit me, sorry for the double post

Edited March 26, 2020 by Indiao21

[Skinjack]

I think I've actually seen them up to 24-ish. Waaay out of my price range. I'm pressing my luck with this one. And thanks.

[Indio21]

Might seem bombarding at first but you can save some serious funds building your own. If you have a good basic fundamental knowledge of pcs and can understand a few videos, it is a small task. Just time consuming. You can plan everything from online pc building tools with minimal references. I was very happy using them for this last build for the first time. I knew everything is compatible before I started the trip to the store. Even on a manufactured pc the warranty is most likely only going to be as long as the individual components are. Not much to plugging in components and wires, downloading and installing drivers, etc.

 

Myself after doing my first I could never ever even think of going back to manufactured pc. If for nothing else than not having to wade through all the bloatware to remove. Plus you know exactly what you are getting. Nope a custom build is like an old '68 327 V8 I had once. Was one main harness branching off into like 3 or so and a couple vacuum lines. Other than that she was just all beautiful machine besides that big Holly I stuck on it ;). Simple, very easy to work on, and always just ran and ran. For a manufactured one I'd compare it to these new sports cars that sound like a bee farting in a jug and is basically a lawnmower engine running on high octane needing something as adept as a pc to make it all run. Really cracks me up seeing them tilt the rear wheels to make breaking traction easier because of lacking everywhere else.

 

I put that beauty in a 4x4 lifted and built Blazer with a T-handle slap shifter hooked to a mildly build trans with a small stall converter. With 33" mudder tires I could lock it in 4x4 and roast those tires right off the wheels on dry pavement. To me, that is a machine :) !!! Food for thought is all.

[Skinjack]

I've considered building several times, but I have no idea beyond the basics. Remove and replace stuff, basically, like hard drive and graphics cards. Never done a motherboard or PSU hookup. Its probably for the best anyway. I can see myself getting so frustrated building it that I throw it across the room.

And kids today just don't understand American muscle cars. I worked with a guy that was so proud of his tricked out ... Neon. Seriously. :rolleyes: :facepalm: :wallbash:

[anjenthedog]

I've considered building several times, but I have no idea beyond the basics. Remove and replace stuff, basically, like hard drive and graphics cards. Never done a motherboard or PSU hookup. Its probably for the best anyway. I can see myself getting so frustrated building it that I throw it across the room.

And kids today just don't understand American muscle cars. I worked with a guy that was so proud of his tricked out ... Neon. Seriously. :rolleyes: :facepalm: :wallbash:

I agree. Just pay the assembly cost and carry on. They handle assembly and Q&A, make sure that all the components work together, install and configure the base OS, and they warranty their work for a min of 1 year (most qualified companies do anyway). Can't speak for you but it's been over 30 years since I was a college student with too much time on my hands and a minimum wage job.

 

I've built dozens of computers over the past 35 years; for my own use, for others, and for work. I stopped doing the fundamentals (aside from spec-ing the components that will be used to build it) 15 years ago when my professional work required me to focus on other things than keeping abreast of every detail of system configuration.

 

It kinda comes down to "what is my time worth per hour? Ok, now what are they charging me for assembling and testing?" At least in my case, it's come out in favor of paying someone else to do the "grunt work" every time.

[Skinjack]

@Indiao21: Check out newegg.com. They have an Orico 1TB drive for NVMe's that is a USB external hookup: https://www.newegg.com/orico-sv100-1tb/p/2CR-000K-00030?Description=orico%20NVMe&cm_re=orico_NVMe-_-9SIA1DSACP4323-_-Product

And what looks like an external housing: https://www.newegg.com/orico-sv100-1tb/p/2CR-000K-00030?Description=orico%20NVMe&cm_re=orico_NVMe-_-9SIA1DSACP4323-_-Product

Not really familiar with the brand, and it's Chinese. For some reason I'm not very fond of them at the moment.

 

Huh. Those two URLs are copying as the same. If one doesn't work you can find them looking up :orico nvme". The housing is about $40, the hard drive closer to $200. They were what was confusing me since they seem to be connected by usb's, that is why I was asking about bottlenecks. If there is not much of a speed performance issue I might consider one for now. Give them time. They dream up all kinds of stuff.

 

@anjenthedog: It used to be Office Depot would build you one for $99 dollars if you brought all the parts. Not sure that they do it now, but its probably worth having the machine covered by up to five years (with the right assembler) to just have someone else do it. For a couple of hundred extra bucks, that peace of mind seems worth the warranty. Especially when you are thinking about dropping 5k on a computer for, basically, hobbies now. Although I have a lot of spare time these days, spending it building a new computer is hardly appealing. I could be out killing dragons. :laugh:

[anjenthedog]

 

 

@anjenthedog: It used to be Office Depot would build you one for $99 dollars if you brought all the parts. Not sure that they do it now, but its probably worth having the machine covered by up to five years (with the right assembler) to just have someone else do it. For a couple of hundred extra bucks, that peace of mind seems worth the warranty. Especially when you are thinking about dropping 5k on a computer for, basically, hobbies now. Although I have a lot of spare time these days, spending it building a new computer is hardly appealing. I could be out killing dragons.

 

I prefer more specialized and dedicated assemblers than OfficeMax/BestBuy/etc, even if it costs a little more. With the right parts and a good assembler (one that does nothing other than building computers), there's no need for or point to a five year warranty. I'd prefer to have my computer working and in my home uninterrupted for the duration of its life, than having to take, or send it in for periodic fixes.

 

My last (tower) computer held up from 2006 until last summertime, almost 14 years. Granted, it was getting pretty sluggish and only ran XP, but it was solid until a motherboard component finally gave out. (In fact, I'll be resurrecting it soon...I have a replacement motherboard and a faster proc in waiting, as it contains a ton of personal files I'm not willing to give up, including all my poetry, a ton of astronomy images, midi compositions, and a whole bunch of other stuff dating back to the late 1980s), once I'm a bit more mobile and can be flexible enough not to groan in pain from my right leg being "wrongly positioned" (recurrent sciatica from an assault several years back)

 

My laptop (also custom spec'd albeit not to the degree of a tower system) was purchased in 2012 and is still running just fine 8 years later, albeit far less spunky than this new-er computer I have Skyrim installed on.

 

That reminds me... Skinjack, if you're still monitoring this thread, I'd recommend having the proc fitted with a cooler that's an over-achiever. Same goes for the power supply. Marginal parts almost inevitably produce marginal performance

[Skinjack]

Yeah, I do too. DigitalStorm, Cyberpower, Xotic, etc. Gets pricey quick though. I've had computers decked out to 10k before I said "Whoa, WTF are you doing?" Thanks for the advice on the processor and GPU. I was going with the triple fan water cooled sealed unit on the processor, just haven't had very good luck looking for a GPU liquid cooler I like yet. I had planned it though, as that seems to be my bottleneck right now and I run A LOT of graphics replacers.

[Indio21]

Hay Skinjack, please do not misinterpret what I mean with the drives. Anything not directly connected the MB the loss over the connections most people would never even notice. It is literally like milliseconds. Tons of people use a SATA connection as it replaced (I'd hope so anyways) the old IDE cables. Hopefully memory is serving me right with these names. At one time I used to be more into it. Before relocating I had a friend who owned a pc shop so him and I would hang out some weekends and do the mad scientist thing with pcs. Been some years now.

 

See anytime a "connection" is involved it builds resistance. Say you have a single wire running X amount of feet. Even though a wire can run energy it resists it all the way. So if you stared with X voltage when you test the end you will see a drop. That is on one solid connection of wire. Now you take a SATA connection to the drive. NOT a direct connection, it is a contact. This makes more resistance because it is not one piece. Then the SATA cable plugs into the MB and another contact point happens creating more resistance. Then from the SATA MB connector it has to run around completing whatever before it can get the info to where it needs to be. Again, more resistance. The M.2 socket is direct on the MB with the shortest path to exactly where it needs to get that info with only one contact. That is what makes it so fast.

 

The old disc drives I use for basically backups came from my old builds. With me it is bang for the buck so I am not willing to toss something still functioning so I put them to use. I believe it was my second build back, for myself, that the SATA became available. When it did I ran it on all and still do with the old drives. Still the fastest offered for a cable connection I believe.

 

Like you when it came time to update the pc my old MB did not have the tech for the newer processors. Researching for this build I discovered the availability of the M.2 socket and easily could see why it would be X amount faster. If memory serves me correctly the cost between a regular SSD and one for M.2 was not bad for the pluses I seen so I opted for it and sought a MB with the socket. Factoring in all I mentioned before here on ventilation and heat for component longevity, to me it is perfect. It is just a circuit board with the connection on the end. It is not even sealed up like a regular drive. Plus it is less space used for my tower that the front fan does not have to push around. For the extra maybe $50 it was just too much of a win for me to pass.

 

In this case you are talking about a USB connected external drive. I do see it is for the new 3.1 USB so that is a plus. If you are looking at an external drive I am assuming you are looking for a "get by" until you get the new PC. If not, I would really reconsider this move! Like I said I have been out of the direct "know" for some time now with pc tech. Once you got the basics down of building one not much ever has changed it twenty plus years for me so I don't keep up on the tech anymore. Just start the researching when I need to. If that drive is for a "get by" you would be best to check to the data transfer rates compared to SATA for the USB 3.1 to know if it will be fast enough for game running. USB 3.1 is very fast compared to previous usb but IDK if it makes SATA category. If it is border line keep in mind that now all that info has to go through all the USB workings before it makes it to where it needs to go. Basically at the least one more step than SATA ever will have to. Otherwise for a new build I'd never consider an external drive for gaming.

 

Back to building one, I'd definitely follow ajenthedog's advice about builders. Personally I wouldn't let Best Buy techs install my car stereo let alone build me a pc! For the reasons he mentioned is exactly why I build my own. Basically what is the quality of their work AND the knowledge level they possess. They are paid employees with NO personal interest in what is best for you. Plus we all know the working world. There are some great workers out there that take total pride in the work they do and then we have the bulk of employees that spend more time trying to get out of work than ever caring about what they are compensated to do! Those "odds" scare me too much for something I use so. But I maybe toooo OCD too. It's like my motorcycles, I will never ever ever even consider letting anyone, well except my uncle that has spent his life working on Harleys and such, swing a wrench on my bike!!! I got my life on the line of only two wheels and I find no faith in trusting another person's work there either, lol!

 

What I mean by time consuming with building one is just downloading and updating drivers. One could assembly a pc in probably less than two hours and that is estimating safe time. The MB is just one big circuit board held down by some screws is all. Literally nothing to install that. The absolute most "tedious" thing is the cpu and that is more about spreading an even coat of the thermal paste. If one can spread an even layer of peanut butter probably not going to have any problems. Now installing it can make one a little intimidated from the amount of pressure needed and seeing the MB flex makes the heart flutter but it is designed for it. Literally everything else is very easy.

 

This is basically the ssd I have https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-plus-500gb/p/N82E16820147742